If you're on a Roadrunner Broadband connection, you might have noticed the inability to connect to a multitude of different websites in the past couple days. The reason? Right here. (news.zdnet.com)

On Wednesday, network company Level 3 Communications cut off its direct "peering" connections to another big network company called Cogent Communications. That technical action means that some customers on each company's network now will find it impossible, or slower, to get to Web sites on the other company's network.

William Steele, a senior network engineer for Syncro Services, said his company noticed the problem Wednesday morning.

"There are some people I can't send an e-mail to," Steele said. "At home, I have Road Runner as an ISP, and wasn't even able to remotely connect in order to manage our servers."

"Peering" arrangements are maintained by network companies that agree to connect their networks directly together to exchange traffic more efficiently. When the companies are of roughly equal size, money rarely exchanges hands.

This has certainly been an eye opener for me, seeing as how dozens of sites I take for granted everyday are now no longer available. The Internet Is Down!

Any examples? We have RoadRunner here at work, and I haven't noticed anything in the (admittedly few) website I've been to.

EDIT: Never mind, I realized that photobucket.com (which hosts my avatar pictures) is through Cogent. Which explains why it wasn't working earlier in the day. Seems to be working now though.

(edited by Mr. Boffo on 6.10.05 1724)In the real world, WWE believes that no matter what our race, religious creed or ethnic background in America, we all share the common bond of being Americans. American-Arabs are a part of the fabric of America, and they should be embraced by all of us.

Mozilla just announced a security flaw a couple of days ago. They've got a patch up on their site (addons.mozilla.org). The patch (the page includes directions on how to do it manually) turns off IDN (International Domain Name)